Bush Likely to Attack
November Surprise? Vacationing Bush Plots End of Iraq
by James Ridgeway
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The last time around, Mideast leaders wanted Hussein out of Kuwait. This time, they want the U.S. out of their affairs. |
The word among wags in Washington is that George W. Bush will invade Iraq
right after the fall congressional elections, giving himself time to get the
war out of the way before his own presidential campaign swings into gear.
An attack before November would be difficult because the desert would be too
hot for troops to maneuver with all their biochemical gear.
While modest reservations against an attack have been voiced by such
luminaries as former Daddy Bush top aide Brent Scowcroft and retiring House
heavy Dick Armey, most of the criticism is actually thumb-sucking by people
like Henry Kissinger, who are skilled at being on all sides all the time.
The only real opposition in Congress is from the right-wing Republicans. The
Democrats are demure.
The political opposition pretty much thinks war is in the cards. "My feeling
is that the administration has staked so much in it that they're going to
have an awful hard time backing down," says Noam Chomsky, the MIT linguist
and author of the anti-imperialist treatise, 9-11.
Chomsky says the current hawks are mostly recycled Reaganites, bullies who
steamrolled dissent in the '80s and can be expected to do the same now.
"Anytime they wanted to ram through some outrageous program, they would just
start screaming and Congress would collapse," he says.
Those Reaganites have had their own dealings with Hussein, and they remain
preoccupied with him now. They were there when the U.S. helped Iraq with its
chemical warfare against Iran, as The New York Times reported, letting the
world in on what everyone in Washington knew already. In fact, as Iraq
gassed its enemy, the U.S. actually removed the nation from its list of
terrorist states and enthusiastically increased military and other aid
across the board to help Saddam beat the fundamentalist Muslims in Iran.
Despite having U.S. equipment at his disposal, Saddam quite quickly went
down to defeat"a lesson not lost on Hussein's military commanders or on
neighboring nations. Chomsky argues the Iraqi army would fare no better this
time, but he warns against false confidence on the part of the White House.
The last time around, Mideast leaders wanted Hussein out of Kuwait. This
time, they want the U.S. out of their affairs. "If I was in the Republican
Guards, I'd just hide my rifle and run," Chomsky says. "They're just going
to get devastated. And I also suspect that the guys in Washington may be
right in their assumption that the rest of the region and the world will be
so intimidated that they won't do anything."
The only certainty, it seems, is that the U.S. will attack. "I think this
war will happen, and I think it's likely to be right after the midterm
elections or sometime in winter 2003," says Chris Toensing, editor of MERIP
Report, which tracks the Middle East. The thinking of the administration is
that "the U.S. is strong enough that none of these countries [Britain or the
Middle Eastern allies] can mount an individual challenge to the United
States, and that they won't, and that they will protest until the last
moment, and when it becomes clear that the war is going to happen, then they
will be quiet and let it go on and assist in various ways, either quiet or
open. . . .
The group of policy-makers that's really pushing this forward, that's really
driving the policy, the really hawkish group, believe in American
unilateralism as not just a necessity, but a virtue. It's the first
principle of their international relations." Morton Halperin, senior
director for Democracy at the National Security Council under Clinton and
present director at the Center for National Security Studies, thinks Bush
will at least solicit the support of Congress before going in, but not
because of the War Powers Act or any other legal requirements. "He will
consult because people will tell him that this is going to be very
expensive, it's going to be very complicated, we're going to have to stay
there for a long time, and you don't want to do it without having gotten the
permission of Congress," says Halperin. "And at the end of the day they're
not going to turn you down." Turning dove on Iraq proved painful for
Democrats before, he says, and they're not about to take that chance again.
Back to Peace Talk Index, Autumn, 2002